#wmhd2019

Okay, this is a little bit of a different one, but I need to get something off my chest and I feel as though Mental Health Day would be the right time to say this.

As a person diagnosed with mild ASD/Autism Spectrum Disorder (I personally prefer the term Asperger’s to describe my condition): Dear online mental health sites, please, please, please stop focusing only on all the negatives and all the problems of a disorder or syndrome like ASD. Most likely, you are where people who either suspect they might be suffering from a mental condition or have already been diagnosed but are looking for more information to better understand themselves will look first. And it can be so disheartening to look up something you have or suspect you have only to find an instructional listing of symptoms looking like this:

This list is from verywellhealth.com, but there are tons of others like it. And while it’s not incorrect, everything is worded negatively and focused exclusively on difficulties and problems (and no, putting sensory “assaults” in quotation marks is NOT the way to make someone’s experiences feel valid, nor is showing a picture of a person insensitive to someone else’s crying the way to make someone feel good about themselves!)

For example, it’s true that I have difficulty with changes in routines. I get upset, anxious and experience a feeling of loss of control when people disrupt the way I like to do things.

But you know what? I’m doing good and have been for a couple of years now. Following a period of around eight years where everything felt insurmountable, I frequently cried, I felt lonely, isolated, abandoned and misunderstood and I didn’t even understand what the problem was because I hadn’t been diagnosed yet.

What turned it all around was not suddenly getting a bunch of friends or going into therapy or getting medication.

What turned it all around was moving into a flat on my own and starting university, which allowed me to a) spend less time in a classroom than during high school and b) follow my routines when I got home because there was no one else to decide but me.

It’s not just that I get upset when my routines are broken. I also get happy when they aren’t. I get satisfaction from reading a magazine my way, even though I acknowledge that reading absolutely everything in chronological order from the page numbers to the copyrights to the advertisements is not the usual way to read a magazine.

And I’m not saying that it can’t be a problem. Routines and systems can turn really nasty and end up controlling you, which can ruin your life. But maybe people could also mention what good it can do to you?

Instead of portraying the whole of your disorder, everything included, as a problem that needs to be fixed, why not portray it as a mixed bag? There are things that can pull energy out of you in a way that doesn’t happen to people without the disorder. But there are also things that can give you energy in a way that doesn’t happen to people without the disorder either. There are plusses and minuses. And if after a long, arduous day of minus-minus-minus from difficult social interactions I restore the balance with a few plusses from my routines and systems, is that really a problem that needs to be fixed?

Anyway. If this helped just one person, then that’s everything I wanted.

i’m very proud to say i’m 3 years self harm free, and have never been happier in my life and my mind. mental health will forever be something i struggle with - forever something everyone struggles with - but focusing on the little improvements and being grateful for them has helped in so many different ways.

it’s okay to feel sad. it’s okay to not be perfect all the time. it’s okay to be stressed. it’s human to be all of those things, and i hope you guys know you are never ever alone. not in anything. i’m always here to talk, whether you want to talk about your struggles or you just want a chat. and i hope we can all be here for each other, on this day in particular, but every day from now on.

I made this drawing of my oc (his name is Andrew, if you didn't know) who is getting better and improving on himself. I made this a while ago (just the lineart, though). And now that today is wmhd, i decided to finish it!

If this boy can get better even after all the things he has went through, you can too.

I want to apologise for letting you down. Please understand that when I do, I let myself down too. The majority of the time these occurrences of ‘let down’ are not my choice. I have ill mental health that effects all aspects of my life, from mood and behaviour to ability to function at all. I hope you can understand that this is not an excuse, I just want to clear up the confusion, that sometimes I am not at fault - but that I am faulty... All I can ever do is say sorry to those on the receiving end of my problems, but just take a second to think about how it might feel to BE the problem... Apologising for how I am on a regular basis isn’t helpful, but it’s all I can do. Every single day I try my very best to not let MH stop me. But sometimes I can’t win. I always get back up when it knocks me down, as soon as I am able.

It may knock me down, but it will not stop me. The important message is not to give up! Keep going. In this (MH) war not every day will be a battle. Look forward to the in between bits, the laughs, the successes, and when you do have to fight, know that it won’t last forever.